The days of video game soundtracks in which the background music consisted of anonymous bleeps and blorks are over. Not only are composers scoring video game-specific pieces — think Lucas Arts’ Grim Fandango — but pop stars such as Snoop Dogg and Blink-182 are getting in on the action.

Video game makers are increasing their budgets for video game music, and while the United States already sports a growing culture of video game music remixing, eventually, American businesses might be able to enjoy the auxiliary market of video game soundtrack CD sales that currently exists in Japan and other countries.